I live in Los Angeles, with my husband and two children. I blog about my former profession, which includes television scheduling, planning, and production. I have a degree in journalism from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, and a M.A. in history from Cal State Northridge. When I'm not blogging, or writing historical non-fiction, I'm chasing after my kids and....watching an unseemly amount of television.

The Eye of the Liger: Why Animated Series 'Napoleon Dynamite' Is A Good Bet for Fox

John Heder is a good sport. In an interview with New York Magazine, the star of indie hit ‘Napoleon Dynamite’ enthusiastically responded to a question about his thoughts about Mitt Romney and ‘The Book of Mormon.’ True, all three entities have the Latter Day Saints church in common, but that’s about it.

This tenuous thread might make some good publicity pieces for the new Fox animated series, which has the same name and virtually the same cast as the 2004 movie, which debuted at the Sundance Film Festival in January, 2004. ‘Dynamite’ features the high schooler living in Preston, Idaho, who lives with his grandmother and brother Kip and their pet llama, Tina. Dynamite spends most of his days daydreaming, or doodling his obsession, ligers. His complete lack of self-awareness makes for some pretty funny scenes as the lynchpin between unique characters that are his friends and family in this tiny community, where the hottest thing going is the video store.

But this show is a good move for Fox for more tangential reasons:

It builds a franchise off an already-owned and successful asset. ‘Napoleon Dynamite,’ the movie, made almost $47 million worldwide on the big screen, and an estimated $20 million on DVD since its release seven years ago. Built-in brand recognition is never bad. Bring something with a cult following into the mainstream? No-brainer.

Napoleon Dynamite premieres this Sunday, 8:30 ET, between the other shows on Fox’s Animation Domination block. It’s lead-in is the stalwart The Simpsons, and before the hilarious and critically-acclaimed anchor Family Guy. Admittedly, animated series get cancelled even with the best of bookends (Allen Gregory was let go last week, after airing only seven episodes, despite its association with comedy powerhouse Jonah Hill). But Fox obviously likes what it sees, moving American Dad off the schedule momentarily to let viewers steep themselves in Dynamite.

Jared Hess and Jerusha Hess, the co-creators/executive producers of ‘Dynamite,’ produce the series along with veteran Mike Scully, a longtime producer of The Simpsons. Rounding out the creative force behind the series are writers and supervising producers from Simpsons but perhaps more importantly, from the series Futurama, various MTV Films projects, and Seinfeld. Futurama was brought back to life on Comedy Central, after leaving Fox, largely because viewers lobbied for its return. (Fox still wins; the production is produced by its animation unit, and sold to Comedy Central.) Point is, Fox has that rare team in Dynamite that knows what its audience expects from its characters, but isn’t so jaded that it won’t take situational humor to a new level.

Detractors from the show will say that its slow pacing and clean, albeit relateable, humor will alienate viewers looking for the slower build found in the live-action movie. Fox is several steps ahead on this one. Most comedy writers will freely admit that it is much, much harder to write something that is very funny, yet clean. This is the beauty of animation: it allows a cerebral joke to expand through, say, exaggerated facial expressions that a human being might not be able to perform, or have a character in a setting not normally available in real life (when was the last time you traveled to a liger breeding facility?).

The Simpsons is in its twenty-third season, and who knows, may continue well into another generation. It’s unlikely that any series can match its connection to audiences worldwide. But Fox knows it’s got to keep freshening its Sunday night niche with shows that entertain committed viewers, and attract new ones. They’ve got to be at least moderately family-friendly, to strike contrast between ‘Animation Domination’ and its planned Saturday night, more adult-themed block.Dynamite has as a better shot than most.

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